A grim picture of Canadians dying amid the noise and bustle of hospital acute care wards, unable to access quality palliative care, emerges from the first-ever comprehensive, national assessment of palliative care by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

TORONTO – In a prestigious medical journal, doctors from Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children have laid out policies and procedures for administering medically assisted death to children, including scenarios where the parents would not be informed until after the child dies.

CORNWALL – Canada’s Catholic bishops aim to have palliative care resources available in every parish to help Catholics grapple with suffering and dying under a regime of legal euthanasia.

VANCOUVER – Hostelling International boasts some interesting locations for their nightly accommodations. World travellers booking with HI can spend a night in a cell at the Carleton County jail in Ottawa, in old army barracks on Jericho Beach, or inside the former Olympic Village in Whistler.

It would seem the war over euthanasia is over, but the fight is not ending for Alex Schadenberg.

OTTAWA – Canada’s Catholic bishops are urging the federal government to maintain a clear distinction between palliative care and the practice of euthanasia and assisted suicide so institutions are not forced to become “an accomplice” in causing an intentional death.

Whenever a doctor assists in a suicide in Ontario by injecting a patient with chemicals to stop the heart, it is recorded on the death certificate as a natural death. 

MANCHESTER, England – An English bishop warned Catholics to be alert to the possible deliberate killings of seriously ill patients in state-funded hospitals.

Death has lived in the shadows and been discussed in whispers for a very long time.

OTTAWA – The recipient of the 2018 Archbishop Exner award says she “drifted” into family medicine but now she sees God’s providence in her work against euthanasia.

In the wake of Ford nation storming the citadel of Queen’s Park, Catholic agencies and groups are already adjusting to the new reality.

With an $11.6-million donation, Toronto’s St. Joseph’s Health Centre will create one of the largest, most advanced and most comprehensive palliative care units in Canada.

Socks, toothpaste, tampons, tissues and a handwritten note from a teenager aren’t likely to rewrite a life story that includes  sleeping in shelters, seeking comfort in opioids and waking up in the emergency room at St. Michael’s Hospital. 

VATICAN – Everyone should have access to essential health services and no one should have to fall into poverty to obtain needed care, a Vatican representative said.

WASHINGTON – Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services was one of seven U.S. religious leaders asking that any new North American Free Trade Agreement "avoid enhanced and extended monopolies on life-essential medicines."